LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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E 449 
.J413 
Copy 1 



CORKESPONDENCE 



BETWEEN 



JOT3:iST JJ^-^-, ESQL-, 



AND THE 



VESTRY OF ST. MATTHEW'S CHURCH. 



BEDFORD. N. Y. 



1862. 



CORRESPONDENCE 



BETWEEN 



J-OHinNT J-^k.^5r, Esq.., 



AND THE 



VESTRY OF ST. MATTHEW'S CHURCH, 



BEDFORD, N. Y. 



» 




1862. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



Mr. Jay^s Letter on his Non- Appointment to the Episcopal 
Convention from St. Matthew^s, Bedford. 

To Messrs. Charles Raymond, E. D. Brown, "Wm. P. Wood- 
cock, Augustus Keeler, Wm. Lockwood, J. T. Banks, 
J. J. Cox, J. W. Husted, James H. Birdsall, and Ro- 
bert Bolton, Wardens and Yestrymen of St. Matthew's 
Church, Bedford. 

Sirs : — I have received the following resolution, unani- 
mously adopted by you on the 21st September : 

• 

" Resolved, That heretofore, out of respect to Mr. Jay's feelings while in 
the Vefitry, we elected him as one of our delegates to the Convention ; but, 
since his voluntary resignation as a member of the Vestry, we now feel at 
liberty to state our reason for not again nominating him to said Convention, 
which is, that he has for several years misrepresented this parish by introduc- 
ing the Slavery question, to the injury thereof.'' 

I am obliged to you for thus distinctly declaring the reason 
why I am displaced from a position in the Convention to which 
I was first elected by the Yestry of St. Matthew's nearly thirty 
years ago. But while commending your frankness in this 
respect, I am compelled to disapprove the time and manner of 
my dismissal. Knowing as you did that former Conventions 
had imposed upon me grave duties in connection with the 
Committee on the Acts of Incorporation, and especially with 
the Parochial fund, which for years I had been laboring to 
ring to completion — duties that could not be properly per- 



formed unless I were returned to the next Convention. I 
think that, in common fairness, you sliould have afforded me 
an opportunity to secure a seat from another parish. To keep 
me in ignorance of your intention to displace me until the last 
moment before the sitting of the Convention, when my chance 
of obtaining a seat elsewhere had become almost an impossi- 
bility, seems to me, I confess, rather sharp practice for a 
church vestry. It looks as if Judge Robertson and his political 
associates, Democratic and Whig, who, ai the last Easter 
election, as I learned from your rector, invaded the church and 
elected a vestry, had endowed you with their practice as well 
as their votes, and had transplanted from their- accustomed 
caucuses to your quiet chancel the seeds of the political 
trickery that has so demoralized our country, and disgraced 
our town. 

I am inclined to hope that such a supposition would do 
some members of your body great injustice ; that they intend- 
ed no such unhandsome thing ; and, if this be so, they will be 
glad to learn that the wrong to the Diocese which your silent 
and deferred action had so nearly accomplished, has been re- 
paired by your siater parish of St. Phillip's, the vestry of 
which have been prompt to tender me a seat, which I have as 
promptly accepted. As soon as it was known that you had 
not reappointed me, proposals were made from other parishes, 
but I did not hesitate an instant in giving the preference to 
St. Phillip's, on the ground that there was no parish more 
justly entitled to protect the Diocesan interests which you 
had imperiled, or to maintain the great principles involved in 
my dismissal. 

Touching the reason given by you for your action, I shall 
not hesitate to imitate the frankness you have exhibited in 
arraigning me for my past course. Every electoral body has 
a right to criticise the conduct and principles of their repre- 
sentative, and every representative thus criticised and con- 
demned has a rio-ht to defend himself. I now stand before the 



diocese adjudged by the Vestry of St. Matthew's unfit to rep- 
resent any longer the parish which I have represented at in- 
tervals for the life- time of a generation. Your resolution 
declares that I have '' for several years misrepresented the 
parish by introducing the Slavery question, to the injury 
thereof." 

It is not quite clear from the language whether it is the 
parish or Slavery that I have injured. If. as the order of 
your words implies, you mean that Slavery has suffered from 
my course in the Convention, I accept your testimony with 
thanks. But if you mean that I have in any way injured the 
parish, I am willing to rely for my defense upon the record 
of the past and the verdict of the future. 

The same looseness of language marks the first clause of 
the paragraph which implies that I have introduced the ques- 
tion of Slavery, as it exists in other diocese, since we have no 
Slavery in our own. The fact happens to be, as you ought to 
know, that the resolution introduced had reference not to 
Siavery without, but to the slave-trade within the diocese, as 
carried on from the headquartersjof the internal traffic in our 
limits, and under our own jurisdiction, in the seat of the Epis- 
copate, and in the heart of our oldest parish — the Parish of 
Trinity. 

With regard to this daring crime, defying alike the laws of 
God and the statutes of the Republic, I simply asked the Con- 
vention to stand in the old paths, to hold fast the truths of 
which the Church was intended to be the pillar, and to re- 
enact, without addition or amendment, the ancient Canon of 
the Council of London, which declared that men and women 
ought not to be sold like brute animals. 

Had the members of that Convention, who claimed to be 
conservative, re-enacted that simple Canon, to our diocesan 
Church of New York would have belonged a share of the 
glory of abolishing the African slave-trade, which is now in a 
fair way of being extinguished, apart from tlic interruption 



6 

of its market by the fidelity of Mr. Lincoln, the admirable 
treaty of Mr. Seward, and the incorruptible integrity of Mr. 
Marslial Murray. 

So, too, with Slavery. Had the Church obeyed the in- 
junction to remember them that are in bonds, or bound with 
them, and boldly stood between the living and the dead, to 
stay the plague that troubles us, what a reward might have 
been here ! In the vain hope of preserving with Southern 
Slaveholders a worthless harmony, she has preserved silence 
on the nearest and worst of crimes — forgetting, in the words 
of Coleridge, that " the guilt of excusing a wicked action is 
only second to that of committing it," and now the Northern 
Church finds its fellowship spurned and itself despised, and 
the Slave power strengthened by the support of Northern 
Christians, while feeding on the oppression of the blacks, is 
at last engaged in a struggle tor life and death with its late 
eulogists, apologists and defenders, for whom it exhibits the 
bitterest hatred and the most profound contempt. 

Since the struggle commenced I have not asked the Con- 
vention to condemn Slavery in any shape, for it is condemned 
in every loyal breast as traitorous to the Republic, and cursed 
at every fireside, which mourns a soldier whom Slavery has 
murdered. The silence of the clergy is broken, and the old 
miracle is renewed. The eyes of the blind are opened ; the 
tongues of the dumb are loosed, and those who stammered 
when they spoke of the peculiar institution have learned to 
speak with plainness. 

The oldest of our learned divines, like the most honest of 
our Democratic statesmen, and the most gallant of our gene- 
rals, those who have been the warmest champions of Southern 
institutions, and the most decided in their opposition to the 
anti-slavery movement, confess too late, their fatal error, and 
frankly acknowledge what the whole world now clearly sees, 
that the Anti-Slavery movement commenced in 1830, to check 
the extension of Slavery — rescue the National Government 



from its control, and place that government on the side ot 
freedom, was based religiously on the holiest of truths, and 
politically, on the wisest and soundest construction of the 
Constitution ; and, that had that policy prevailed, the nation 
and the world would have been spared the shame of tliis^^in- 
famous rebellion, whose avowed aim it is to base a Slave'Tlm- 
pire on the ruins of our Republic. The very name of Aboli- 
tionists once used to designate a handful is now applied to 
the millions who stand by the Constitution, against the trai- 
tors of the South, their base allies of the North, and their 
sympathizers in foreign lands. A General in Missouri re- 
cently said that there was reason to doubt the loyalty of any 
man who had not been denounced as an Abolitionist ; and 
even here, men of earnest loyalty are honored with a higher 
grade. Dr. Vinton of Trinity tells me that he is accustomed 
to be called " a colored Abolitionist." In view of these facts, 
gentlemen, you can hardly expect for your action in regard 
to Slavery at this moment the applause it might have received 
a short year or two ago. Times have changed ; and you may 
seek in vain on loyal soil for a fair appreciation of your effort 
to shield Slavery from rebuke, although it will doubtless be 
appreciated at Richmond, and might perhaps win you the 
blessing of that right reverend traitor and Rebel Major-Gen- 
eral. Bishop Leonidas Polk. 

Did my past experience permit me to be astonished at any 
folly or inconsistency on the part of Christian bodies, or any 
viUainly on the part of political caucuses, I might, I think, 
have felt a mild surprise at youi' selecting this moment, when 
Slavery, like its twin infamy, the slave-trade, is about to meet 
its doom at the hands of an indignant and betrayed people, 
for such an interference in its behalf from the ancient and 
venerable Parish of St. Matthew. 

Accustomed as I have been, in other days, to bear rebukes, 
year by year repeated from the Episcopal Convention, m the 
matter of the admission of St. Phillip's, as a fanatic, an mcen- 



diary, a disorganize!', and profoundly ignorant of church prin- 
ciples, crowned as that long contest was, in its ninth year, by 
a vote in which the clergy by a majority of ten to one stamped 
with their approval the principle for which I had contended, 
and condemned as factious and uncanonical the opposition I 
hadmet, you will hardly expect me to feel very sensibly, so 
far as I am alone concerned, a vote of censure from a vestry 
Avliose election was superintended by town politicians for po- 
litical purposes. 

And yet one or two of your names associated with the 
Church in the days of my boyhood incline me to regret that 
your action was unanimous. In whatever I have done in 
former years in the Convention or elsewhere to array the 
Christian Church of our country against Slavery, I have but 
feebly endeavored to carry out the principles of my grand- 
father, who declared that " until America comes into this 
measure (emancipation), her prayers to heaven will be impi- 
ous." That too, as you well know, was the sentiment that 
during a long and active life animated my father, whose re- 
mains repose in your churchyard, and whose pure spirit for 
half a century was interested in the prosperity of the parish, 
and whose bounty, continued beyond the grave, still aids in 
its support. 

How far under such circumstances propriety demands on 
the part of the Vestry a decent respect to their principles, 
their example, and their memories, is a question upon which 
opinions may differ ; but I may say this — that while I trust 
and believe that Slavery and the Rebellion are presently to 
die together, and that our country is to be united and free, 
yet if this hope is to be disappointed — if Slavery, no longer 
the oppressor only of the black man, but the cruel and treach- 
erous foe of our country, shall escape the doom that seems to 
impend, and survive the 1st January, 1863— which this 
nation by its Executive has fixed for its extinction in the 
Rebel States — the thought that, at such a moment as the pre- 



9 

sent, Slavery lias tbimd convenient defenders in the parish of 
St. Matthews, will not lessen the resolution formed in boy- 
hood at all convenient times and in every proper way to labor 
for its extinction. 

I pray tho.-e loyal men of your number, by whom this ap- 
peal may be heeded, to consider whether this is a proper time 
for admitting into the church personal and party broils, and 
compelling" lines of seperation between those who should stand 
side by side for our common country. Is this a time to be 
dragging up old issues, and giving aid and comfort to the 
enemy, by showing him that Slavery, traitorous and bloody as 
it is with the best life-blood of the North, is tenderly cared 
for by a Northern vestry, who, instead of defeating the sym- 
pathizers about them, are rebuking me for my anti-slave trade 
action in years gone by ? 

These are limes when words are things, and when a word 
hastly spoken, and an act thoughtlessly done, may have remote 
consequences that we little dream of. 

It has come to us as it came to our fathers, that upon our 
individual and united action rests the destiny of the Republic, 
and of free institutions. It is a solemn moment. The respon- 
sibility cannot be shirked. It attaches to every act that may 
even remotely affect (he issue, but especially to every act that 
may be supposed to imply a disposition to preserve and pro- 
tect Slavery, that curse to humanity and to the Republic. 

That sham Republicans and Secession sympathizers are 
plotting in your midst is true, but I trust that among your 
number are some who will be startled when they consider the 
significancy of their recent action, and ask themselves if it 
were well timed, reflect upon the position to which that ac- 
tion will consign them on the future page of the History of 
the Rebellion. 

I have the honor to be. Sir, your obedient servant, 

JOHN JAY. 

The Jay Homestead, Bedford, Sej^t. 23, 1862. 
2 



10 



Answer to Mr. Jay's Letter to the Vestry of St. Mcdthew's 
Church, Bedford. 

John Jay, Esq. — Sir : Tery reluctantly we find ourselves, 
"by the advice of friends and a sense of self-respect, compelled 
to appear before the public in answer to your letter of Sept. 
23d. We know well of how little importance we in our 
humble sphere as individuals or incorporation are to the 
world at large, still we ask, as an act of justice, that those 
who have read your misrepresentations will read our plain 
statement of facts. 

While we may differ from you as to the propriety of thus 
placing before the public, and in a secular paper, a church 
matter, the knowledge of which would otherwise have been 
almost entirely confined to our own little community, we 
agree with you that you have a perfect right to defend your 
past course in the Diocesan Convention ; and had you, in your 
letter, confined yourself to this point, we should not have 
thought of replying ; most unhappily this was not the case — 
you have thought proper in making your defense to misrepre- 
sent the reasons of our action ; and also to insinuate, if not 
to make directly, charges affecting our veracity, our Church- 
manship and our loyalty. Sir, we cannot but hope, that when 
you in sober second-thought reflect upon the gravity of these 
accusations, and how little foundation there is for them, you 
will feel sorry for what you have written ; and that you have 
thus, without cause, insulted men, some of whom are much 
older than yourself J and all of whom have characters as 
christians and as citizens, as dear to them, as is your own to 
you. We cannot but think that the memory of your ances- 
tors, to which you appeal, is more disrespectfully treated, by 



11 

the course you have seen fit to pursue, than by any action we 
may have taken. 

We cannot admit that the deep respect we all feel for the 
memory of your grandfather and father, ought to influence us 
to act against our own sense of right in any matter. They 
themselves, would have been the last persons to put forward 
such an idea — and here we may add, for the information of 
the world, that "your father's bounty" to which you allude, 
goes not to the support of the parish, as you say, but is a per. 
sonal annuity to the present Rector, and ceases when he 
leaves Bedford. 

We cannot either admit that the acts of past Conventions, 
in having made you a Trustee,.&c., or a member of a Com- 
mittee on Canons, ought to interfere in any way with our 
freedom of choice of a delegate ; and we must confess that 
we have been unable to discover from the reports of the pro- 
ceedings of the Convention just ended that any very "grave 
duties" were there performed by you. In our ignorance, we 
think the reading of a report — the only act of yours of which 
we have heard — might, without great detriment, have been 
read by another Trustee nearly as well, so that, even had not 
our "sister parish" come to the rescue, the Diocese of New 
York might possibly have survived the "wrong" to it and the 
"interests imperiled" by our sad neglect of duty. And, by 
the way, it seems also hard for us to understand how it can 
have been that, if our action was so deferred that your 
"chance of obtaining a seat elsewhere had become almost an 
impossibility," you still had time to receive "proposals from 
otlier parishes'^ beside the "sister parish of St. Phillip's." But 
we humbly beg pardon for our ignorance in these cases ; we 
are but simple countrymen after all, and this, our ignorance, 
must also be our excuse for not having informed you, before 
the day of election — before we knew that .we were going to 
do it — of our intention to displace you as a delegate. The 



> 



12 

election was held at the usual time, and we are inclined to 
suppose that it would have been rather an impertinent act in 
any individual to have told you beforehand that you would 
not be elected. You think we were guilty of "sharp prac- 
tice." Alas, sir, you now see that we are very dull and igno- 
rant. We are even unable to discover the "seeds of politi- 
cal trickery" which you fear were on Easter last "transplant- 
ed" "to our quiet chancel." Let us hope they "fell by the 
wayside." 

It may, however, appear to others somewhat of an imper- 
tinence on our part to have sent you the resolution we did ; 
inasmuch as no cause for so doing appears in your letter. 
We undoubtedly had a right to elect you or not, and were 
not bound to give any excuse, and it may seem wrong to have 
forced upon you the reason why we did not. Had you pub- 
lished the whole of the proceedings, a copy of which we sent 
you, the public would have understood the matter. It was 
not quite fair in you to have omitted all mention of this. We 
will now quote the last resolution sent you : 

" Resolved, That the Clerk be requested to send a copy of 
these proceedings to Mr. Jay, in order that tlie Rev. Mr. 
Boggs (our Rector) may be exonerated from the charge of 
having prevented his election.'' 

You had written a long letter to our Rector, laying on him 
the blame of your non-election ; that he had not mentioned 
your desire to be chosen, nor stated the important reasons, 
which, in your opinion, made your presence in the Conven- 
tion necessary. He thereupon called us together, and laid 
the matter before us. And to show you that he was in no 
way the cause of your non-election, we passed and sent you 
the above resolution. We need not enter into this matter 
further. Enough has been said to show that there was cause 
for troubling you with our proceedings. 

Again : you impliedly attack our veracity and our church- 
maathip, and insult, in a manner you have no right to do, our 



13 

feelings when you say, "It looks as if Judge Robertson and 
his political associates, Democratic and Whig, who at the last 
Easter election, as I learned from your Rector, invaded the 
church and elected a Yestry, had endowed you with their 
practice as well as their votes, and had transplanted from 
their caucuses to your quiet chancel the seeds of the political 
trickery that has so demoralized our country and disgraced 
our town." Surely, this is very bitter language — and what 
have we done to deserve it ? Why should Judge Robertson, 
&c., be all brought in? We will explain somewhat more 
fully and accurately than you have done. 

With the matter in dispute between yourself and Judge 
Robertson, we, either as a Vestry or as individuals, have had 
nothing whatever to do. The world knows that the difficul- 
ty arose regarding the Post Office at Katonah, a place " not 
more than two or three miles from the Jay Homestead," and 
not from church matters. It is true that on Easter Tuesday 
when the Vestry, but not the delegates to the Convention, 
were chosen, Judge Robertson and others were present at 
the election, and by their votes may possibly have prevented 
your re-election as Warden ; you had, however, you must re- 
member, sent a long letter to be read to the congregation, 
positively resigning your office as Warden, on the ground that 
all the rest of the Vestry differed from you on a certain ques- 
tion regarding where the second service should be held, and 
it may be that this letter and resignation of yours had as much 
to do with your non-election as Warden, as had the votes of 
"Judge Robertson, &c." The present Vestry was then elect- 
ed in part by their votes ; but except two to fill vacancies, 
(one your own, and another caused by a removal to the city), 
it consists entirely of persons who have thus served tlie Church 
for years ; and if we may be allowed so to speak of ourselves, 
we are entirely above being influenced by "political trickery" 
or by "town politicians for political purposes," least of all in 



i4 



church matters. You have been told that the gentiei^^^ . 
presented in the Vestry the resolution you have printed, elec- 
tioneered prominently for your re-election at the Easter 
meeting, rode about the country to obtain votes for you, and 
in the meeting, even after your resignation had been read* 
strongly advocated a re-election ; you have also been inform- 
ed that a large majority of the present Vestry then voted for 
you, and disapproved of bringing a personal quarrel into 
church eMctions ; yet, knowing this, you would hold us up to 
the world, as influenced {even in our cJiancel) by " town poli- 
ticians." There is no excuse for such a misrepresentation. 
It is a perversion of the truth ; we do not say a willful one. 
The fact is, that the reason given for your non-election was 
the true and only one ; and "Judge Robertson and his asso- 
ciates," whoever they may be, had nothing whatever to do 
with the election by tlie Vestry of delegates to the Con- 
vention. 

You charge that the object of the Vestry was to ''shield 
Slavery from rebuke," and you draw as an inference, that we 
are disloyal to the Government, and are influenced by "Sham 
Republican and Secession sympathizers" in our midst — grave 
accusations in these times. Sir : The community in which 
we live will characterize as it deserves such a charge — they 
know that we count among our number men who have, in 
their stations, done as much for their country as yourself. 
For the public, who know us not, but before whom you have 
thus seriously attacked our loyalty, we can only utter a most 
indignant denial of all such charges. We assert that we have 
done nothing in the least degree to justify your imputations, 
and that you ought to have known that it was so, and we 
hope that thej positive declarations of nine honest men may 
outweigh the imputations of even Mr. John Jay. 

Our resolution may have been carelessly worded ; we do 
not pretend to be men of literary attainments, that very 



15 

looseness of language might have shown you that politicians 
had nothing to do with it, they would have been sharper than 
we. We intended no " defense of Slavery," no " interference 
in its behalf." Your sneers in regard to this glance harm- 
lessly from our consciences. • It was because we would avoid 
the " dragging up of old issues," because we would keep out 
of the " church party broils," and prevent the drawing of 
" lines of separation," that we refused to send to the Conven- 
tion, as our representative, one who in past years seems to 
have taken delight in agitating and embroiling, until his con- 
duct was on the floor of the House stigmatized as " indecent." 

Cannot you understand that we may really think the Con- 
vention of our Church is no place to discuss and act upon the 
slave-trade ? And may we not feel the evils of that trade, and 
perhaps some of us be just as strongly opposed to Slavery 
itself, as you are, and yet not desire that these vexed ques- 
tions shall be forced upon an ecclesiastical body which has no 
power of jurisdiction in the matter ? This you have persist- 
ently done ; we do not think it right, and therefore, as quietly 
as possible, sent some one else to represent this parish. The 
case of St. Phillip's, to which you refer, was so entirely dif- 
ferent that we wonder a person of your intellect does not see 
it. That was a question whether colored churches should be 
admitted to seats in the Convention ; the Convention, and it 
alone, had jurisdiction, and it was obliged to consider the case. 
The slave-trade is provided for by the laws of the nation. The 
Convention has no jurisdiction — so at least we think — and this 
is the plain fact of the case, and this alone. Our action had, 
and was intended to have, no bearing or reference at all on 
the state of the country, or upon the question of Slavery 
itself. 

We are not unsupported in the opinion we hold in this 
matter — you very well know the manner in which the Con- 
vention has always refused to consider this question by an 



16 



overwhelming majority. In deciding, as we liave done, that 
we will not be represented in that body by one who has per- 
sisted in forcing this question upon them, we are sustained 
by this their past action — the charge you have endeavored to 
fix upon us, falls with equal force upon them. We need not 
be ashamed that we should be assigned " a position on the 
future page of history" in the company of such good and 
wise men. With these remarks, having, as we hope, set the 
whole thing in a clear and true light, we conclude. We have 
no desire to be drawn into any further controversy, and trust 
there may be no need of again intruding ourselves on the 
public. Yours respectfully, 

CHARLES RAYMOND, E. D. BROWN, 

WM. P. WOODCOCK, ROBERT BOLTON, 

AUGUSTUS KEELER, WM. LOCKWOOD, 

J. J. COX, J. W. HUSTED, 

JAMES H. BIRDSALL, 

Wardens aivi Vestrymen of St. Matthew's Cliurch, Bedford. 

Bedford, Sept. 30, 1862. 



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